Cruddas gets £45,000 win

PETER Cruddas, executive chairman of CMC Markets and former co-treasurer of the Conservative Party, was yesterday awarded libel damages of £45,000 in the High Court against Mark Adams, the political lobbyist.

Cruddas stepped down from his post in the Conservative Party after a series of allegations about his role in Tory party funding.

At a previous court hearing in November 2012, judgment had been entered against Adams with damages to be assessed. Adams is also required to pay the costs of the action, more than £120,000, and has undertaken to the court not to publish in future the defamatory allegations he had posted about Cruddas on his standup4lobbying website and via his Twitter account.

Commenting, Jeremy Clarke-Williams, a lawyer at Slater & Gordon who represents Cruddas, said: “The very serious nature of the defamatory campaign pursued by Adams left Cruddas with no option but to accept his invitation to sue him for libel. .....There now remains his ongoing libel action against The Sunday Times.”